Anne Meara is Jerry Stiller's wife, and for decades was his partner in one of America's most famous comedy acts, Stiller & Meara. Both were actors, and they met at a 1953 theatrical audition. They started in comedy as members of the Compass Players (which years later was renamed Second City), and were successful as a nightclub act, appeared in numerous movies, and were staples on the old Ed Sullivan Show and other televised variety shows.

Younger audiences might recognize Meara from recurring roles on ALF, Sex and the City, and her husband's The King of Queens. She was also a writer for ALF. Earlier, she was a regular on several 1970s shows, including Rhoda with Valerie Harper, Archie Bunker's Place with Carroll O'Connor, and her own lawyer drama, Kate McShane. And of course, Stiller & Meara's comic accomplishments include their children, actor Ben Stiller and comedian Amy Stiller.

Through the 1990s Meara played a maid, Peggy Moody, on the soap All My Children. Whenever the plots got too ludicrous or the melodrama too overblown, the show would come back to Meara's Peggy, who would offer a fresh-baked pastry and a little common-sense.

She has written two plays, but her first, titled Victims: Blood From a Stone, was termed "too mean-spirited" and has not yet been produced. At 65, she wrote the more lighthearted After-Play, a metaphysical comedy about couples going to a restaurant after a play, and unraveling some mysteries of life. After-Play has been produced regionally, and had an off-Broadway run with Rue McClanahan.

She was raised Catholic, but converted to Judaism six years after marrying Stiller. She has long stressed that her conversion wasn't at Stiller's request, but because "Catholicism was dead to me", and she simply came to prefer the more "lively" character of Jewish culture. And she took the conversion seriously, studying the faith in such depth that her born-Jewish husband quipped, "being married to Anne has made me more Jewish".